When the family and I visited Tara the first time I had no luck with the camera and so I decided a long time ago that another visit was definitely in order. Mind you, I love this place and don't really need an excuse.

I was fortunate in the fact that I had the whole hill to myself today; I was unfortunate in the fact that it was raining.

I had originally planned to show Tara to my friends first thing in the morning when the surreal fairy light covers the hill, but Julian suggested that we take in the sunset here and so plans changed.

We had two hours until sunset when we arrived and so were able to look around at our leisure. There were very few other people milling about and once the road noise was cut from our attention it was wonderful.

We sat on The King's Seat next to Stone Of Destiny and watched an amazing sunset. I don't think the day could have ended more perfectly for any of us.

We had the pleasure of meeting an American lady who had finally made it to Tara. The pleasure and excitement she showed at being on this magical hill was a treat in itself. I was certainly reminded of how incredibly lucky I am to live just 40 miles from Tara.

Back again! And this time I got soaked! The grass is really long right now and last night's downpour made walking off the paths great fun.

I was here primarily to take some panoramic shots of the hill and to look for some of the wells on the hill.

Today we attended a tour of the hill and part of some talks given by the archaeologists that have done so much fantastic work at Tara over the last 8 years or so. I spent some time talking to Conor Newman about several of the thoughts that I have developed over the last few months whilst studying the Hill of Tara quite heavily. To my surprise (and delight) he seems to share some of these.

We also experienced the 'Audio-Visual Display' (that's a film to you and I) in the visitors centre. To be frank I was not impressed with about 70% of it. It is definitely aimed at attacking the tourist market and, although it has been updated to include some more recent discoveries and ideas, the photos still showed St. Patrick on the Forradh.

The talks, though, were well worth attending and although I didn't learn anything new to me it was great to meet the people whose work I have been reading of late.

We had a whistle stop tour of Tara on our way to Loughcrew. I can never resist popping in.

I do not need an excuse to visit Tara and so when a friend of mine found out that he'd mislaid a photograph that was supposed to go into a book he's just written I jumped at the chance to come.

The hill was predictably busy, but not over-crowded. A couple of tour buses accounted for most of the visitors and here and there couples had found themselves little hide-aways. We wandered over most of the hill because I thought I'd take the opportunity to take some proper GPS reading for the various monuments.